Set Dosa

Dosa may be one of the most common South Indian dishes but it is also one of the most glorious recipe. This is another variety of dosa with spongy texture and smaller in size that the usual dosa and most importantly this is served as set of 3 or 4.

Set Dosa

Ingredients:
Rice flakes – 1 cup
Urad daal – 1 cup
Rice – 4 cups
Salt
Baking soda

Method:

Wash and soak everything for about 6 hours

Grind it into smooth paste and allow it to get fermented

Mix the batter with salt and a pinch of baking soda. The batter should be bit watery than usual.

Heat a pan. Pour 1 ladle of the batter and spread it little bit, so that it will be bit thick and forms about a 5 inch disc. Sprinkle oil deliberately. Cook only on one side. 

You can serve it with any of your favourite chutney.

Hotel Dosa

Yes, this is one of the restaurant recipes prepared at home. One of my friends has shared this recipe with me. The secret of the recipe lies in adding sugar just before making dosa, which keeps the dosa crispy and also for longer time. Not only that, this will give a nice colour to dosa.

Dosa with Sambar and peanut chutney

Ingredients:
Urad daal - 1/2 cup
Raw Rice - 2 cups
Parboiled rice - 1 cup
Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp

Method:

Soak all the above mentioned ingredients for 6 hours and grind into smooth batter. Leave the batter to ferment, preferably over night as we do for the normal idly, dosa batter.

Just before making dosa add 1 tsp of sugar to the batter and beat well to melt the sugar. Add sufficient salt for taste, mix every thing.

When the dosa tava is hot enough, sprinkle some water and wipe it with a piece of cotton cloth or kitchen towel and spread the batter over the pan as thin as possible.

Sprinkle the oil over the top. No need to flip the dosa as this is thin enough to get cooked on both the sides. Just allow to cook dosa until it becomes crispy.

Now on top of tava itself, cut the dosa starting from the centre to one end, and roll it to make it like crown.

Serve it with sambar, chutney of your choice.

 
Note: By sprinkling some water and wiping them will remove the greesy bits and keep the tava clean which enables us to make the crispy dosa.

Rava Onion Dosa

This is an instant dosa, that can be done with out taking effort of soaking the rice and daal. Most importantly, no need to grind any thing (energy save).

Rava onion dosa

Ingredients:
1 cup rava (fine semolina)
1 cup rice flour
3 green chillies-chopped
1/2 inch finely grated ginger
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
salt to taste
pinch of asafoetida
3 onions-finely chopped
3 tsp cashew nuts-roasted & broken
oil

Method:

Mix the rice flour, rava, asafoetida, cumin and salt with water and mix every thing into thin batter like buttermilk consistency. Add cumin, green chili and pepper corns to the mixture.

 Rava onion dosa mixture

Heat a flat pan (tawa) and grease it with a spoon of oil. Sprinkle the onion and cashews.

 Sprinkled onion and cashews on the hot tawa

Now sprinkle the rava mixture until the batter covers the whole tava.

Dot the edges with little oil and cook until golden brown.

Using a spatula carefully fold the dosa and remove from the pan. Serve hot with chutneys or sambhar.

 Rava onion dosa with sambar, tomato chutney and coconut chutney.

Jonnalu / Sorgham/ Jowar dosa

Jawar is grown and extensively used in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Tamilnadu in India. It is used for Roti or Bhakri.

Now a days it is a common problem that most of the middle aged people are suffering from diabeties. Most of them will be depending on the medicines instead of taking proper diet. The common thoughts are eating chapathi during nights might put a check for the diabetes. Rice has a tendency to increase the blood sugar levels very quickly which is not so good for diabetes. I thought to give a go using protein and fibre rich

jawar instead of rice.

You can find more benefits of Jowar here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jowar

Ingredients:

Jowar – 3 cups
Rice – 1 cup
Urad daal / Black gram – 1 cup
Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp

Urad daal and Jawar

Method:

Soak jowar, rice and urad daal + Fenugreek seeds together for atleast 6 hours or even over night. Grind them into paste like the normal dosa batter. Add salt and allow the batter to ferment for at least 8 hours. When it is fully fermented , prepare dosa as normal. You can find more dosa recipes here.

Jawar dosa served with peanut chutney

Note: You can also avoid the rice completely and use 4 cups of Jowar instead of 3.

Sajja / Bajra / Pearl Millet dosa

Among Millets Baira is the predominant crop in India. It is also called as Pearl Millet in Western Countries, it is a wholesome grain which has high nutritive value. It is usually very popular in the States of Maharashtra and Rajasthan in India. Generally people eat in winter season. It has the same quantity of protein as wheat. Bajra is rich in Iron, B vitamins, Thiamine, Riboflavin and niacin.

You can find more details in here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_millet

Ingredients:

Bajra / Pearl millet / Sajjalu – 3 cups
Rice – 1 cup
Urad daal / Black gram – 1 cup
Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp

                                                                                      Pearl millet

Method:

Soak all the above ingredients together for atleast 6 hours. Grind them all together as normal dosa batter and allow it to ferment for at least 8 hours.

Just before making dosa, stir the batter thoroughly by adding salt, and swirl the batter on the hot pan and drizzle some oil if necessary. Turn dosa on to the other side as well and cook for few seconds.

Serve them hot with any chutney.

 

Sajja Dosa with Peanut chutney and Roasted chickpea powder

Masala Dosa - 2

This is the most famous street food at Rayalaseema also all families favourite tiffin. Though the process is bit lengthy, it is worth of trying.
We need two types of chutneys for this.Onion Chutney and Bombai Chutney, Click below for the recipes.
1. Onion Chutney
2. Bombai Chutney

Bombai Chutney and Erra Karam / Onion chutney

For Dosa Batter

1 Cup – Urad dal
4 cups – Rice
Fistfull of cooked rice (Though optional, helps in quick fermentation)
Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp (gives dosa rich gold colour)

Soak all the above for about 6 hours and grind into smooth paste. Ferment it for 8 – 12 hours.


Method:

Pour the dosa batter on hot tawa and spread it . When it is roasted turn the dosa to other side, when it is done flip it back and apply Erra karam / Onion chutney first and then bombai chutney on top of erra karam / Onion chutney.

Dosa with Masala spread

Fold it and serve it hot. Masala dosa done. 

 Masala Dosa

Dosa Roll with Cabbage Carrot fry

Want to try some thing new and get away from routine. Tried Dosa rolls with cabbage fry.

Dosa roll with cabbage fry

Ingredients:

Dosa batter
Carrot cabbage fry

For cabbage fry

Cabbage – grated finely – 1 cup
Carrot – grated finely – ½ cup

Salt

Cumin powder – ½ tsp

Coriander powder – ½ tsp

Heat a pan with 1 tbsp of oil and add cabbage and carrot. Fry them for few minutes untill they just become transparent. Sprinkle cumin powder and corrinader powder and fry for another two minutes and turn off the heat.

Now heat the dosa pan and spread the dosa batter. When the dosa turns crispier, then add the cabbage fry and roll it.

Dosa with cabbage fry

I made dosa bit crispier, you can also make smooth dosas and roll with cabbage fry or any other vegitable filling.

Upma Dosa

This may sound bit funny… but trust me it is worth of trying. Not only that, we can make use of the leftovers in an efficient way.

I got left over upma from the morning breakfast which is not enough for the whole family. At the same time I had left over Dosa batter which is not sufficient either. So, I thought I can mix both and prepare Upma dosa. Yya,,,,, hoo… grand success.

Ingredients:

Upma – 1/2 cup
Dosa batter – 2 - 3 cups

Leftover upma and dosa batter

Method:
Mix upma with dosa batter absolutely with no lumps. Add bit of water if required. Take a ladle full of batter and spread on tava as normal dosa. This is not only tasty but also crispy.

Dosa for our Saturday dinner

 Upma Dosa with Coconut Chutney

Egg Dosa

Egg Dosa

Follow the same procedure for Dosa Batter and Errakaram as I have explained in Masala Dosa recipe.

Method:

Heat the pan and when it is hot enough, spread the dosa batter and immediately break an egg and spread it accross using spatula or fork as shown below

Dosa with egg spread

Drizzle some oil.  When it gets fried turn to other side and allow the egg to cook for a minute. Now turn the dosa back and apply Errakaram and serve hot.

Egg Dosa with Errakaram

Ulli Pesarattu (Green gram dosa with Onion)

Ulli Pesarattu

Ingredients

Whole green gram (Pesalu) - 1 cup
Rice - 2 tblsp
Ginger - 1 inch
Onion - 1 cut into small pieces
Green chilli - 2 cut into small pieces

Method:

Soak green gram and rice for 3-4 hours and grind into paste along with salt and ginger.

Green gram, rice and ginger

Heat a deep pan and add one tsp of oil. When the oil is hot add chopped onion and green chili and fry for 2 minutes using a dash of salt until translucent. Those who like raw onion, no need to fry.

Heat a tawa (Griddle), when it hot pour a laddle full of batter and spread it in circular motion. Sprinkle some oil and fry until it turns to gold colour. Flip to other side until it gets cooked. Turn it back and sprinkle the onion chili mixture.

Masala Dosa

Masala Dosa

I still remember those olden days where my mom used to prepare the batter using Stone mortar (Rubbu roolu). Due to the heavy work involved in the preparation of dosa, and the size of the family (3 of our paternal uncles (babais) used to live with us) we used to get the feast once in a month only. Thanks for the technology and the evolution of many kitchen gadgets which makes women's life happy.

Bottom line – No matter how good the technology is, the taste of the batter prepared using the latest mixer grinders is no where close to the one prepared using old style Stone mortar.

Coming back from nostalgia, lets peep into the preparation of spicy masala dosa. To accomplish this you need to have Erra karam (Onion chutney), Aalu koora (Potato curry), pappula podi (Roasted channa dal powder)

For Dosa Batter

1 Cup – Urad dal

4 cups – Rice

Fistfull of cooked rice (Though optional, helps in quick fermentation)

Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp (gives dosa rich gold colour)

Soak all the above for about 6 hours and grind into smooth paste. Ferment it for 8 – 12 hours.

What I normally do is I will soak every thing first thing in the morning before I rush to work. When I come back I will grind it and leave it for fermentation until next day morning. You can refrigerate the batter once it is fermented. Do not leave outside for long if you are living in hot countries like India or even during summer in cooler places like US, UK.

For Chickpea powder

Roasted chickpea - 1/2 cup
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Grind roasted channa with cumin seeds and salt into reasonably fine powder and keep it ready for masala dosa.

For Erra karam (Onion chutney)

Onion and Red Chilli

Onions Medium – 2 ( I prefer Indian Onion as this tastes better)

Dry Red Chillies 4– 5 (As per your taste) – You can also substitute this with chilli powder, obviously the taste differs.

Tamarind paste – ¼ tsp or Tamarind 1 inch (Optional, but this will help to reduce the raw flavour)

Salt

Grind all the ingredients coarsely. To achieve this you need to switch the power on for less than a minute. Turn off, stirr the contents and start again. Need to repeat this until you get it done coarsely.

Errakaram

For Potato curry

Potatoes Medium – 4 -5
Onion Medium – 2 Cut length wise
Green chilli – 4-5 grind into paste
Tomato – 1 chopped
Oil – 3 tbsp

For tampering - Mustard seeds, Cumin seeds, channa dal, Curry leaves, turmeric.

Boiled and mashed potato, onion, tomato, chillies

Method: Boil the potatoes, peel and roughly mash into small chunks and keep it aside

Heat a pan with oil. When the oil is hot, fry chana dal along with mustard, cumin and curry leaves. Then add onion, Chilli paste and salt and sauté until the onion looks tender. Add the chopped tomato and fry until the tomato becomes mushy. Finally add turmeric and mashed potato and sprinkle bit of water and cover with lid for 2 minutes. Stir once again and remove from the fire.

Ready to go for masala dosa

To prepare dosa, take full laddle of batter and spread it in circular motion over the hot pan. Drizzle some oil.When it is done flip into otherside and cook for 1 minute. Flip the dosa back and apply errakarm, sprinkle some chickpea powder and drizzle ghee (Clarified butter). Now place the potato masala in the centre and wrap the dosa.